1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to installations designed to enable users of transport networks to pay sums that correspond to Journeys taken by said users on-board vehicles travelling over said networks.
2. The Prior Art
Among installations of the type to which reference was made in the preceding paragraph, the invention more particularly relates to those which comprise:
firstly travel tickets made available to users in return for payment, each of the tickets including means for recording thereon quantifiable validity data or the equivalent (a sum of money, a number of authorized stages, an expiry date, etc . . . . ) corresponding to the payment made, and means responsive to remotely transmitted signals making it possible to implement successive reductions in the validity data, if quantifiable, until it has been reduced to zero, or else to consult said data; and PA1 on each ticket, coded identification means for said ticket and coded means lending themselves to renewing validity data remotely into said ticket in response to receiving suitable electromagnetic signals; and PA1 at a central station, means suitable for transmitting electromagnetic signals to the tickets to be renewed, which signals are generated in such a manner as to enable them to be automatically selectable by said tickets and being suitable for remotely renewing the validity data in said tickets. PA1 a central station organized to generate and to transmit operating electromagnetic signals to the appliances; and PA1 in each appliance, receiver circuits suitable for identifying and making use of some of said signals.
also at least one ticket-stamper located close to a passage giving access to the network, which ticket-stamper includes means responsive to presentation by a user of a ticket of the above-specified kind for authorizing a given trip over the network, for remotely checking the validity state of said ticket and for remotely subtracting a quantity corresponding to the trip in question from the validity data recorded in the ticket, if said data is quantifiable.
Such installations are advantageous in that they make user access to the network very simple: there is no longer any need for users physically to pay money to an employee of the network when gaining access thereto, where making payment in that way often requires the return of change and can constitute an operation that is particularly lengthy and tedious.
However, in known installations of the kind in question, once the credit stored on a ticket has been used up then that ticket is finished and is of no further use.
To gain new authorization to use the network again, the user must then acquire a new ticket in return for new payment and for that purpose must go to an appropriate ticket office or window.